The American Voter

The American Voter ( The American voters ) is the title of a 1960 monograph, first published in the American pollsters Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes. The authors were members, headed by Campbell Research Group on " Survey Research Center " (SRC ) of the University of Michigan, where in 1948 the first time a national election study was conducted, which was the starting point of the U.S. American National Election Studies ( ANES ).

In this work they devoted to the analysis of individual voting behavior of voters in political elections and thus established a designated as Ann - Arbor - model according to the location of the University of Michigan explanation, which represents one of the three main streams of choice research. The book is, together with the 1944 published "The People's Choice " by Paul Felix Lazarsfeld and the other authors as well as to published by Anthony Downs in 1957, "An Economic Theory of Democracy " the most influential works of electoral research.

Content

In the book " The American Voter ", which was based on analysis of survey data on the elections of 1952 and 1956, as well as smaller samples to the elections of 1948, 1954 and 1958 in the United States, the authors presented a social-psychological approach to the explanation of individual choice behavior dar. in political elections, according to this theory, known as Ann- Arbor - model to assess the candidates, evaluating the current relevant political issues and party identification are the decisive factors for the voting behavior of voters. In addition to the rational choice approach and micro-sociological theories, this model is one of the three main streams of choice research.

Criticism

On the theory set out in "The American Voter " was criticized, among other things, that the authors do not usually presented to answer the question of which is the three main variables of the model in case of conflict decisively. Other scientists questioned that the party identification as described by Campbell and his colleagues postulated was stable in the long term. The authors of the work " The Changing American Voter " were of the opinion that the conclusions in "The American Voter " contained are not universally valid, but would apply only for companies discussed in the work of election.

Importance

The book "The American Voter " is one of the most important works of election research and as a key work of political science. Other works such as " The Changing American Voter " (1976 ), "The Unchanging American Voter " (1989), " The Disappearing American Voter " (1992), " The New American Voter " (1996) and "The American Voter Revisited " ( 2008), in which the theories of Campbell and his colleagues continued in part or critical analyzes were subjected took the title directly relating to their 1960 released publication. Later studies have also shown that it is possible the key messages of the model, taking account of country-specific economic, cultural and social factors to other political systems. The book the underlying methods formed the basis for the regularly conducted as part of the American National Election Studies voter surveys in the U.S. and similar projects in other countries.